Tag: planning

What would you do?

What would you do if you knew that you only had five years to live? You‘re not sick. But you will die and you know the date. In this made up scenario, you’re not allowed to accumulate any additional debt (you can’t just put everything on credit and live it up).

Would you live a lifestyle similar to what you’re living now? What would you change? Would you act differently? Would you work at the same job? Would you work less so you can spend more time with your friends and family?

The point of this thought exercise is to get you to think about the actions you’re taking on a daily basis. Often, we waste too much of our lives because we think we have such a long time on this planet. We lose days, which turn into months, and those months turn into years. Next thing we know, five years have gone by and we’re still doing the same thing, complaining about the same thing, and not doing anything to improve our lives.

So what answers did you come up with to the above questions? What is stopping you from doing those things? Is it fear or a limiting belief? Or did you just not realize that you’ve been wasting time and that we are all dying (only some more quickly than others)? We all have a finite amount of time on this planet. We might as well make the most of it.

Sharpening the saw

Just like the analogy of “sharpening the saw,” you need to take time to sharpen your body and mind. Take the time to prepare for the future. When you a sharpening the blade of a saw, you may feel unproductive because you’re not actually “using” the saw to cut something down. But, in reality, you’re being extremely productive. Because of you being proactive in sharpening the saw, it ensures that when you do go to use it, it will be more efficient and cut more effectively with less energy being expended.

This is why it is important to work on “sharpening” your body and your mind. Eating healthy foods, working out, and stretching (which I enjoy the least, but need the most) are a few ways to sharpen your body. Reading, writing, drawing, painting, doing puzzles, building things, and meditating are ways you can sharpen your mind.

By working on yourself today, reducing your weaknesses or improving your strengths, you prepare yourself for the work of tomorrow to be easier. If your training is harder than the actual event, the event will seem easy to you and you’ll be able to perform better than the competition.

The telescope and the microscope

When trying to achieve your goals, you need to look at both the big picture (i.e., what relationships to you need to work on to build long-term success) and your day-to-day actions (i.e., what do you need to do to make some money/pay the bills TODAY).

You need to be able to toggle your focus on both sets of requirements to get to where you want to go. If you’re always thinking big picture, building connections and focusing on slow-developing results, you may never get there because you haven’t done what you need to do to keep the lights on today. For example, if you own/manage a theme park, it doesn’t matter if you’re designing a new ride if you don’t get ticket sales today to keep the park open. Your day-to-day operations need to be functioning well in order to move towards your future goals. But, if you’re not careful, you can become stuck always focusing on doing just enough to survive for the next day and never make progress towards your dreams. Toggle your focus between short and long-term results, ideally with your short term actions leading directly towards your long-term goals.

Jon Gordon makes the analogy that you need to use a metaphorical telescope and microscope. If you only have the telescope, you are always looking far away. You’re looking at the big picture in the distant future. That’s great to have a North Star to guide you along your journey, but you also need to be able to look at the daily tasks to get you there. This is where the microscope comes in handy…having attention to detail on short-term events and taking those next “most important action steps” to get you to where you want to be. Don’t get trapped into only using one instrument, as using a telescope won’t let you focus on the small details right in front of you, just as a microscope won’t let you observe the night sky.

Changing your mindset

Ask yourself, “what’s the worst that can happen?” Often, our decisions don’t boil down to life or death, so don’t make them out to be more than they are.

Default to saying, “why not?” Instead of being pessimistic and thinking, “why should I do X?” You should say, “why not?” If you default to yes and then look for a reason why you shouldn’t (primarily looking at health and safety), you open yourself up to the possibility of experiencing new things. But if you never try anything new, your life will become boring and stagnant.

Instead of saying, “I can’t” ask yourself “how can I?” Think outside of the box. If someone else has done something, you can too. But what will it take for you to get there? How can you achieve a specific goal?

Changing your mindset – being optimistic and believing in yourself – is the best path to unlocking your potential. There’s always bumps in the road. Things won’t go as planned. But as long as you know this going into your next endeavor, plan for the worst, and hope for the best, you’ll be alright. Just keep moving forward.